New tools you can use now to dramatically increase the quality, size, and accessibility of undergraduate research programs

By adopting community-based mentoring models that emerged from Hispanic, Black, and Indigenous communities and team-based approaches employed by minority-serving undergraduate institutions, the Research-Intensive Community model was developed at Texas A&M University as an alternative to the traditional 1-on-1 mentoring model. Leveraging the sustainability and scalability of multilevel mentoring and the productivity of diverse undergraduate research teams, this model fully integrates research, education, and leadership to train participants, produce research, and transform institutions. Within five years of implementation as coupled research leadership/undergraduate research programs, this asset-based model proved to be scalable, sustainable, and inclusive, forming the basis of the largest, cheapest, and most inclusive undergraduate research program in the nation. By sharing infrastructure, emerging practices, and cross-institutional leadership programs, it has started propagating across the nation at the level of individual faculty member, research group, department, college, university, and university system, especially within institutions whose students are negatively impacted by growing budgetary and legal constraints on programming. Christopher Quick, Ph.D., is a Professor and Executive Director of the Aggie Research Program at Texas A&M University. Since joining Texas A&M in 2002, he has been on the forefront of developing novel administrative structures that empower faculty to create sustainable, scalable, and inclusive curricular and co-curricular programs.